Paul Menard won the Busch Pole Qualifying Award and will start in the top position in Sunday’s Overton’s 400 (2:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Chicagoland Speedway. After two practice sessions and qualifying, we’ve dissected the numbers and 10-lap averages to offer a suggested lineup worthy of your Fantasy Live consideration as you go to make roster decisions for the 17th Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of 2018. Remember that the garage locks at the end of Stage 2.
Cars to the rear: Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Daniel Suarez, Timmy Hill and Reed Sorenson (unapproved adjustments)
RJ Kraft’s revised Fantasy Live lineup following practices and the lineup being set:
1: Kevin Harvick
2: Brad Keselowski
3: Ryan Blaney
4: Chase Elliott
5: Aric Almirola
Garage: Kyle Larson
Analysis: It’s been a jammed packed weekend with two practices and qualifying on Saturday before Sunday’s race. In case you only saw qualifying on TV, the times of Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Chris Buescher were disallowed after they failed post-qualifying inspection at Chicagoland Speedway. Those four cars will start 36th through 39th, respectively.
Going into the weekend, I was planning to build a lineup around Harvick, Keselowski, Truex Jr. and Larson. I’m sticking with three of those four. Harvick topped the board in 10-lap averages for final practice and has three 1.5-mile wins on the season. Keselowski has been strong points-wise at the 1.5-mile tracks as has Larson. While I would have liked a better qualifying effort from Larson, this track fits his style so I expect him to get into the top five. I’m starting with him in the garage, but fully expect to plug him in before the end of Stage 2. I’m electing to sit Truex Jr. despite the fact he is two-time defending race winner. I don’t like the 36th-place starting spot and the No. 78 hasn’t been what it was last year on the 1.5-mile tracks. Still have some great places to play him moving forward — Kentucky, New Hampshire, Pocono, Watkins Glen, Darlington.
Blaney has been fast this weekend as he has for most of the 1.5-mile weekends. I was on the fence about Elliott coming into the weekend, but a good qualifying effort, plus his Chicagoland history has me giving him the starting nod. The last spot in my lineup came down to Almirola and pole-sitter Paul Menard. The qualifying effort out of Menard was impressive, but I just don’t think he is going to have the staying power to get significant stage points and frankly, at this point in the season I trust Almirola more.
For the stage and race wins, I’ve got Blaney in Stage 1, followed by Harvick the rest of the way.
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JOLIET, Ill. — Cole Custer emerged from his No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford on pit road at Chicagoland Speedway, red-faced and drenched in sweat. Pouring several water bottles down his fire suit and atop his head, he made his way from pit road to the media center following his third-place finish at the Illinois track.
The race was hard-fought — as he started Saturday from the rear — and the top-five result put him atop the Xfinity Series points standings for the first time this season. But Custer wasn’t content; he slid through his pit box on a late green-flag stop, losing time on pit road.
“Really we just had a great car,” Custer said. “We probably were the best car out here — (Kyle) Larson’s probably just the best driver at Chicago. So, it was a little bit hard to catch him at the start running the top, but I felt I felt like long-run-wise, we were about the same speed as he was and if we were close again, I probably would have learned some things on the top that probably would have kept us closer to him.
“But it just sucks that we made that mistake; I’ve never made that mistake, I don’t think, before … so it’s just frustrating. We’ll move on to the next one, but we have some great momentum and guys gave me a great car.”
This marks Custer’s fifth straight top-five finish, a streak that began with a runner-up finish at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May. He’s led multiple laps in three of those five races, but still hasn’t been able to nab that first win of 2018.
Because Custer’s No. 00 is up front consistently, top-five finishes aren’t enough for the team anymore; they want victories.
“I think we’re really hitting our stride,” Custer told NBCSN. “We’re in contention to win races. We have the speed every single race …”
“Now that you’re fighting for wins every single weekend, you start getting disappointed that you don’t win,” he said later in the media center. “I think we’re happy with where we’re at — we’re disappointed with top fives. We’re knocking on the door every weekend of having a win. We just need to have everything go right and not make mistakes.”
At one point during the race, Custer made a pass on Stewart-Haas Racing counterpart Kevin Harvick, whose No. 98 finished second. For an Xfinity Series driver, running with Monster Energy Series veterans like Harvick — and passing them — is rewarding.
“Kevin’s taught me a lot and he’s definitely one of the best out there,” Custer said. “It’s always satisfying when you’re racing the Cup drivers and you’re actually able to outrun them. They’re a little bit better than I am in the Cup cars, that’s for sure.
“But in the Xfinity Series cars, I feel like I can compete with them pretty well. It’s just now it’s beating all of them and winning a race. But we just have to keep it going.”
The Xfinity Series heads to Daytona International Speedway next weekend for the series’ third restrictor-plate race of the year. Custer hopes to continue the team’s run.
“I’m looking forward to it — I think we’ll have good speed,” Custer said. “I’m not the best speedway racer, but I think I’ve gotten better and better at it, too.
JOLIET, Ill. – Paul Menard had the hottest shoe on the hottest day of the NASCAR season.
Torching Chicagoland Speedway with a lap at 180.102 mph (29.998 seconds) in the final round of Saturday’s knockout qualifying session at the 1.5-mile track, Menard won the pole for Sunday’s Overton’s 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race (2:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Nearly 10 years had passed since Menard last claimed a Busch Pole Award. His only previous top qualifying effort came at Daytona in July 2008, when he was driving a Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt Inc.
But on Saturday, Menard’s Wood Brothers Ford was .022 seconds faster than the No. 12 Team Penske Ford of Ryan Blaney (179.880 mph).
Earlier in the day, Menard finished eighth in the Overton’s 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Chicagoland, under brutally hot conditions that saw the temperatures in the cockpits of the race cars reach 150 degrees.
Between the race and Cup qualifying, Menard used the brief break to recover.
“After the race I went back to the hauler — I’m on my fourth or fifth different pair of underwear,” Menard quipped. “Just been keeping it fresh, I guess. Drank some pickle juice, lot of ice packs and I feel pretty good.
“Pickle juice gives you all your salt back. It’s an old wives’ tale, I guess, but we did it in football all the time, and it seemed to work. I hadn’t drunk pickle juice in a while, but I thought today was a good day to do it.”
Menard had the fastest lap in the first round at 180.120 mph but slipped to seventh in the second. But in the round that counted, he had just enough to edge Blaney for the pole.
Menard’s only victory in NASCAR’s premier series came in the 2011 Brickyard 400.
“It sucks to have a ‘1’ there — now we have a ‘2’ in the pole column,” Menard said. “Now we have to get rid of that ‘1’ in the win column and make another ‘2’.”
After receiving IV fluids after the Xfinity race, Chase Elliott qualified third at 179.748 mph, followed by Kurt Busch and Clint Bowyer.
“I felt like I got all I could,” Elliott said. “I don’t really know what I could’ve done different in that last round. It was good, much better than we have been qualifying, so it was nice and hopefully turns out that way tomorrow.”
Aric Almirola, Brad Keselowski, William Byron, Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez will start from positions sixth through 10th, respectively. Five-time winner Kevin Harvick will start 11th.
Martin Truex Jr., winner of the most recent race at Sonoma, was slated for the 12th position on the grid, but failed post-qualifying inspection and will start 36th. Denny Hamlin had qualified fourth but saw his time disallowed as well after failing post-qualifying inspection and will start 37th. Jimmie Johnson and Chris Buescher also had their times disallowed and will start 38th and 39th, respectively.
JOLIET, Ill. – When Kyle Larson crossed the finish line at Chicagoland Speedway 8.030 seconds ahead of runner-up Kevin Harvick, there were no screams of elation from the winner of Saturday’s Overton’s 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
Instead, Larson placed an order.
“Water, ice and towel at the start/finish line,” Larson radioed to his team, after winning a race in mind-numbing heat that approached 150 degrees in the greenhouse of his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet Camaro.
Larson had won the pole earlier in the day but had to start from the rear of the field because of a flat right front tire that required changing before the race. That proved only a temporary deterrent.
By the end of the first 45-lap stage, Larson had driven up to sixth place, and on Lap 72, he made a three-wide pass of Harvick and Christopher Bell to take the lead for the first time.
The 25-year-old Californian went on to lead a race-high 80 laps and took advantage of an 80-lap green-flag run to the finish to win for the first time at Chicagoland, the second time this season and the 10th time in his career.
“Yeah, it was pretty hot,” Larson said in the understatement of the week. “But the adrenaline was kicking in. I can’t say enough about this race car. We were really bad (Friday in practice), so it’s cool we could win.
“We were able to get our car better for today. These guys (the No. 42 team) never quit. The pit crew was amazing. That was really a key there, I thought, to get some track position after falling back to fourth (after the restart following the end of Stage 2).”
In fact, Larson gained two positions on pit road under a caution for debris in Turn 4 on Lap 114 and restarted third on the bottom on Lap 121. He cleared the fourth-place car of Christopher Bell on the restart and took off in pursuit of Harvick, who had assumed the lead.
“I was able to stay pretty close to Harvick on the bottom,” Larson said. “I felt like, if the race stayed green, I would eat him up.”
Indeed, after the tires began to wear, Larson moved to the top of the track, where he was unstoppable. On Lap 142 he surged past Harvick into the lead and extended his advantage to more than four seconds before a cycle of green-flag pit stops that started on Lap 166.
When the cycle ended with Brandon Jones’ stop on Lap 180, Larson was up by 9.490 seconds. From that point on, it was a cruise to the finish—in a steam bath.
“I needed a short run there, for sure,” said Harvick, who led 38 laps. “The Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford was really good there for about 25 laps, and Kyle would struggle for 25 laps. I just didn’t need it to go green.
“I just couldn’t run the top. I would slide the front tires, and I didn’t have enough rear grip to throttle through the center of the corners. My car wouldn’t turn, but on the bottom.”
And the bottom lane wasn’t the fast way around the 1.5-mile track when the tires began to wear.
Cole Custer ran third and took the series lead from sixth-place Elliott Sadler, who fell to third in the standings behind Custer and fifth-place finisher Daniel Hemric. Daniel Suarez came home fourth in his second Xfinity start of the season.
Justin Allgaier ran seventh, followed by Paul Menard and Chase Briscoe, who scored his first career top-10 in the series. Chase Elliott was 10th and paid a quick visit to the infield care center before Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying for some IV fluids.
“I feel a lot better now,” Elliott said on his way out of the care center. “Those IVs make you feel like a million bucks.”
The Xfinity Series returns Friday, July 6 from Daytona International Speedway for the Coca-Cola Firecracker 250 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
JOLIET, Ill. — Entering Sunday’s Overton’s 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, the 17th Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the 2018 season, Daniel Suárez is 19th in the standings.
Nearly halfway through his sophomore season at NASCAR’s highest level, Suárez is still looking for his first victory. The best career results for the 26-year-old from Mexico are two third-place finishes, at Watkins Glen in 2017 and at Dover this year.
But one thing Suárez doesn’t lack is confidence, and on Saturday morning at Chicagoland Speedway, he called his own shot where the Cup Series Playoffs are concerned.
“I don’t really know (how), but we’re going to make it,” Suárez asserted. “I will tell you that. Somehow, we are going to work very hard like we’ve been doing. It’s a real shame that we haven’t showed the results we deserve, because the speed has been there.
“We have shown the ability to finish in the top-10 every race. I don’t know. I don’t know what I am doing wrong. Maybe some of my stuff, it needs a little bit of luck, but I don’t believe in luck 100 percent. We’re going to be fine. Maybe in a month, we’re going to be in a different position.”
Suárez can make the final 16 either with a victory or on points. As it stands now, with Daytona 500 winner Austin Dillon 18th in points, Suárez would have to overtake 15th-place Alex Bowman to qualify for the Playoffs.
Though Suárez trails Bowman by 73 points, he doesn’t view that deficit as insurmountable.
“By points is very doable,” Suárez said. “I think if we have the speed to go out there and win a race, we will take that chance. But if we don’t and have to finish top-five or top-10, we’re going to be consistent and play that way, winning the stage points and stuff like that.
“I mean 70 points in 10 races is not a lot. It’s doable, but you have to race smart, and a lot of people freak out a little bit. I am not one of those. I have to stay calm. We will be fine.”
Brad Keselowski made it a Team Penske sweep on Saturday at Chicagoland Speedway by leading final practice in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Keselowski circled the 1.5-mile track at a session-best 180.826 mph in the No. 2 Ford. Ryan Blaney, who led the first practice, finished in 14th place in final practice in the No. 12 Ford.
Martin Truex Jr. finished second to Keselowski with a speed of 180.656 mph in the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota. Joey Logano, in the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, Kurt Busch, in the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, and Aric Almirola, in the No. 10 SHR Ford, rounded out the top five.
Hendrick Motorsports teammates Alex Bowman, Chase Elliott and Jimmie Johnson, who were fast in opening practice, finished 21st, 23rd and 30th, respectively, in final practice. Series points leader Kyle Busch was eighth in final practice in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota. Kevin Harvick, the leader in wins with five this season, was sixth in the No. 4 SHR Ford. Kyle Larson, who finished 16th in the session, made slight contact with the wall late in practice.
Focus in the Monster Energy Series now turns to Busch Pole Qualifying, set for 7:05 p.m. ET with coverage on NBCSN and the NBC Sports App. Be sure to set your pole-winning pick for NASCAR Fantasy Live in order to have a chance at earning five bonus points toward your score.
Practice 1
Ryan Blaney jumped to the top of the leaderboard in the final minute of practice on Saturday at Chicagoland Speedway. Blaney posted a speed of 178.992 mph in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford to best Jimmie Johnson, who had held the top spot for the first 49 minutes of the opening session in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.
Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammates Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott finished tied for third with identical speeds of 178.749 mph. Daniel Suarez, in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, rounded out the top five on a steamy morning in Illinois.
Defending race winner Martin Truex was 19th in the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota. Series points leader Kyle Busch was just ahead of Truex in 18th place in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Landon Cassill, in the No. 00 StarCom Racing Chevrolet, and BJ McLeod, in the No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet, served 15-minute penalties at the end of practice for being late to pre-race inspection.
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JOLIET, Ill. — In the waning laps of Friday’s Camping World Truck Series race at Chicagoland Speedway, runner-up Ben Rhodes thought about the 2017 Las Vegas race, when he took the lead on the final restart for the win.
“I was thinking about trying to pull down and make a pass and take it three-wide and take the lead,” Rhodes said. “But it was a little risky — I didn’t quite get the restart that I wanted and that was due in part because of the restart zone. John Hunter (Nemechek) didn’t get going as fast. And I couldn’t pull out until the start-finish line, so I didn’t time it quite correct, so I had to end up just pushing him and we ended up pushing him all the way to the lead by Turn 1. Kind of unfortunate for me because I was trying to use that momentum to my advantage and take the lead like Vegas that worked out so well for us. … It was an interesting race.
“Very tempting — I thought about making it really interesting, but I thought better of it. We just needed a good finish tonight.”
As leader John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 8 truck ran out of gas on the white-flag lap and Brett Moffitt scooted to the win, Rhodes held on for the runner-up finish. It marked the best result for his No. 41 ThorSport Racing Ford all year and his first top 10 since Charlotte in May.
“It’s just good to finally have a good finish because we’ve been having probably the world’s worst luck here lately. I thought I was going to get struck by lightning when thunder storms started rolling through Louisville, Kentucky,” he said with a smile. “… But now it just seems that things are finally starting to go our way a little bit and it’s very rewarding because our guys have been working so hard at ThorSport Racing. Seventy, 80 hours a week — 7 in the morning to 8/9 at night at times. I know it’s rewarding for them.”
While he says he’s disappointed he didn’t nab the win, the runner-up finish is encouraging for both Rhodes and his team — especially with the playoffs drawing closer every race. Rhodes sat on the bubble (on the “in” side) heading into Friday’s race. This finish gives them a boost of momentum heading into the next race at Kentucky Speedway — especially considering Kentucky is Rhodes’ home track.
“It’s just so good for morale,” he said. “You’ve got to think bigger than just yourself — you’ve got to think about your team. And seeing the smiles on their faces when I got out of the truck and seeing the smiles on their faces and hearing them talk about it. That was rewarding for me — it felt like a win to see the smiles on their faces. Thinking about the big picture, the amount of hours they’re putting in, thinking about ThorSport and (team owners) Duke Thorson and Rhonda Thorson and the opportunity we have here. Everybody coming together from Ford. It helps everybody out, just boosts the morale so much.
“And I’ve my home track coming up; so, this is awesome momentum. It’s a huge story line for me going into my home track, just being able to say ‘hey, we got second place.’ ”
JOLIET, Ill. – Brett Moffitt didn’t hear the words that turned Friday night’s Overton’s 225 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race in his favor.
“I’m blowing up!” John Hunter Nemechek shouted over his team radio as he entered Turn 1 with the lead on the final lap at Chicagoland Speedway.
Nemechek’s misfortune proved an unexpected boon to Moffitt, who won the race by 5.092 seconds over Ben Rhodes, as Nemechek faded to seventh at the finish—not with a blown engine, as he had thought, but with an empty fuel cell.
Moffit’s victory—his third of the season and the fourth of his career—was all the more unlikely because his Hattori Racing Enterprises didn’t have the resources to come to the 1.5-mile track until Fr8Auctions.com made a midweek commitment to sponsor Moffitt’s Toyota in Friday’s race.
“We weren’t even supposed to be here,” said crew chief Scott Zipadelli.
Moffitt and Nemechek battled through the final 24-lap green-flag run, with Moffitt taking the lead by a nose on Lap 136 of 150. Nemechek regained the top spot on the following circuit, moved his line to the top of the track and began to pull away.
When he took the white flag to start the final lap, Nemechek was ahead by roughly five truck-lengths before his fuel tank ran dry and Moffitt sped past.
“This is great,” Moffitt said after climbing from his No. 16 Hattori Racing Enterprises Toyota Tundra. “We didn’t know if we were coming. To be here in Victory Lane, it’s an honor and a blessing.
“These guys work hard. I feel like we threw away a couple of wins this season. I hate it for the No. 8 (Nemechek), whatever happened to him. But we’ll take it however we can get it right now.”
Moffitt was prepared to try a banzai run on the final lap, as Noah Gragson had tried unsuccessfully to do to Moffitt on June 16 at Iowa Speedway. As it turned out, Moffitt didn’t have to.
“I got a good run off Turn 4 as we took the white,” Moffitt said. “I committed to what Noah did to me at Iowa. And halfway up the hill (in Turn 1), something happened and they said ‘Just take it easy.’ That’s a great way to be able to just drive easy through 3 and 4 to win one.
“I can’t thank everyone on this team enough and Fr8Auctions that even got us here this week. Tuesday, we didn’t even know. They really extended a hand and helped us when we needed it the most.”
Nemechek, who is running a limited schedule in both the Camping World Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series, bemoaned the ill fortune that kept him out of Victory Lane.
“We just don’t have luck on our side right now,” Nemechek said. “Overall, it’s a good showing. They knew we were here. We don’t know at what point we’ll be back with the trucks. It’s frustrating and disappointing, but we’ll move on from it.
“If we keep doing what we’re doing and running like we are, we’re going to win races. That’s the biggest thing. The results haven’t been what we wanted this year on the Xfinity side and the Truck side, but tonight was a real heartbreak.”
Johnny Sauter ran third and retained his series lead by 65 points over Gragson, who started from the pole and finished fourth. Brandon Jones completed the top five in the No. 51 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota.
The Camping World Truck Series will be back on track at Kentucky Speedway for the Buckle Up in Your Truck 225 (July 12 at 9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Dalton Sargeant will carry his grandfather’s name above the door of the No. 25 GMS Racing Chevrolet for Friday night’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Chicagoland Speedway (9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Lt. Commander Harry Sargeant served 26 years in the U.S. Navy and commanded two ships, the USS Preserver and the USS Sailfish, during his service, which ended in 1978 upon his retirement. The honor was part of NASCAR Salutes Refreshed by Coca-Cola, a program where NASCAR pays tribute to servicemembers and their families.
Among the NASCAR Salutes events planned for Chicagoland, Camping World Truck Series drivers were wearing red, white and blue patriotic-themed gloves that were to be gifted to the military families being hosted and to the track for fund-raising opportunities.
Meanwhile, check out Sargeant as he shows off his truck’s new look in the video below:
JOLIET, Ill. — Jimmie Johnson said he owes Chad Knaus one.
After winning at his home track of Auto Club Speedway, Johnson said he promised his crew chief that he would return the favor at Knaus’ home track of Chicagoland Speedway.
The pair have been close — as close as a runner-up finish — at the 1.5-mile venue. But in the pair’s 81 wins together over a 19-year period, Chicagoland remains one of three active tracks where the Johnson-Knaus duo has never captured the checkered flag with the No. 48 Chevrolet.
“Boy, we’ve had a lot of races where we’ve come down to the last pit stop or the last handful of laps, leading a lot of laps,” Knaus told NASCAR.com at the Hendrick Motorsports shop in Concord, North Carolina. “It’s unfortunate we’ve come so close. Quite honestly, I bet there’s been over the years maybe seven races where we should have won there, but just haven’t been able to put it together …
“To be able to get a victory there would be nice and definitely long-waited.”
“He’s put me in position a couple times and I’ve squandered it away,” Johnson said of his crew chief with a smile. “So, I owe him. Really, really hopeful to get it done. It is a fun mile-and-a-half race track. I really enjoy going there, I love the area and it would be awesome to win that for Chad.”
Knaus’ hometown of Rockford, Illinois, is less than 150 miles from the speedway. It’s where the 46-year-old got his start in racing, tapping into the local scene with his father, John Knaus. And it was at nearby Rockford Speedway where Knaus developed his well-known dogged determination, the drive that has helped eventually lead the No. 48 team to record-tying seven championships.
“The racing in the Midwest is extremely good from a Late Model standpoint or Modifieds, whether it be asphalt or dirt,” Knaus said. “I grew up and started my racing career at Rockford Speedway. My father won the championship there, I think seven times in total. A bunch of races and we were very successful.
“I think racing there with my father in that community was a huge benefit because it taught me the tenacity that you need to be able to go out there week in and week out to be able to be successful over a long period of time as opposed to just individual weekends. A lot of people in the racing community, what they do is they go and just run special events or they hit the big hitters. But a lot of the guys in the Midwest, because the racing season is so small, you have to do a lot of races back-to-back and that definitely helped me in the Cup Series.”
That tenacity has been tested this season for Johnson-Knaus, as the pair continue to search for their first win nearing the halfway point. With differing personalities and equally competitive natures the pair have seen their ups and downs in their nearly two decades together. Many like to bring up the infamous “milk and cookies” conversation that team owner Rick Hendrick orchestrated in 2005 when the duo’s relationship was fraying.
Today, both Johnson and Knaus credit their strong personal relationship and success as what’s held them together for so long.
“Jimmie and I are just like family,” Knaus said. “I think the way that I can read him and understand his emotion, understand what it is that he wants in the race car and vice versa; the way he understands my emotions and what it is that I’m trying to describe to him to get out of the car. I think that that’s invaluable, really unique to the industry.
“The only people that I can think of that have been together as long as Jimmie and I have would be Dale Inman and Richard Petty. And that’s going back a long time ago, so Jimmie and I definitely have a leg up on the competition from that standpoint, just from the standpoint that we’re comfortable, we understand one another and we always know that each one of us is giving everything that we’ve got.”
Johnson has expressed that he has more time left in Monster Energy Series competition. So has Knaus. But Johnson also acknowledged with the grueling nature of a crew chief’s job, he understands that Knaus’ career may not play out as long as his. Crew chiefs “live in dog years,” he said.
Knaus smiled upon hearing that and assured he still has a “handful of years to go.”
“Motorsports is very addictive,” he said. “The lifestyle is addictive, the pace is addictive. We’ve heard it time and time again that as people continue to go and perform, they want to continue to have that success and that euphoria of competition and what is there. I enjoy motorsports, I enjoy racing, still — I love going to the race track and having the opportunity to compete and race against people. So, I don’t see me transitioning any time real soon but I don’t see me going until I’m 55 years old, either.”
Ethan Miller | Getty Images
By that time, Knaus will have another figure in his life as wife Brooke is pregnant with the couple’s first child. Priorities have changed, he said, but not his career aspirations.
“You think about other things maybe a little bit differently; home life, housing, finances, all that kind of stuff,” Knaus said. “I think it just comes natural as you’re starting a family. I’m excited about the adventure … I’ve waited a long time to get to this point. I knew that I was not ready to have a child or start a family until I got to about this time. I needed to go out there and prove that I could be successful and have some success and kind of do what I needed to do. I don’t think having a family or a change in the family is going to take away from what I do in motorsports at all …
“Honestly I needed to mature and I have matured and I’ve learned an awful lot because of what it is with my job. Not by any means did I understand what it was like to have a child or a family yet. But working in the environment that we have with 600 teammates and different emotions that people go through has helped me a lot and got me ready for it.”
Knaus making the comment that he had to prove himself as a crew chief speaks volumes to his competitive nature and desire for perfectionism; he’s won seven championships and 81 races with Johnson over the past 19 years, but still felt that he needed to prove himself before starting a family. That drive that was forged on the local Midwestern tracks is ever-present today.
On Sunday, he’ll look to put a tally in the win column at Chicagoland Speedway, leaving only two tracks on the circuit where Johnson-Knaus have not won. That day, he’ll also be inducted into the track’s Legends Club, which plays homage to important and successful figures in racing.
True to form, Knaus hopes there’s room for amendments by his name.
“At first, I was like, ‘Man that’s really cool,’ and then as I thought about it, I was like ‘Man, that means I’m kind of old, too,’ ” Knaus said with a smile. “It’s one of those things – I like the fact that they’re doing that, it makes me feel very special obviously with the other people that have been inducted into that arena.
“But we’re also not done. So, when I spoke to some of the people a while ago, and said, ‘Well, I hope you guys just leave a little bit of space behind my name because I think we’re going to have some more stats to put in there.’ “
Knaus’ hometown of Rockford, Illinois, is less than 150 miles from the speedway. It’s where the 46-year-old got his start in racing, tapping into the local scene with his father, John Knaus. And it was at nearby Rockford Speedway where Knaus developed his well-known dogged determination, the drive that has helped eventually lead the No. 48 team to record-tying seven championships.